Wordless Wednesday: If You Build it

They will want a picture.

4-Year-Old Mind Tricks

Happy Tuesday readers.  Do you know what I LOVE about being a dad?  Well yes, most of it so far has been pretty terrific, but what I am actually referring to *this* time are those little moments, or things your kid does which take you by complete surprise and make you laugh out loud.

I had one of those moments last night.

Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I were heading upstairs to start his bedtime routine when he decided that he wasn't quite ready to give up playing the game of 'Hide and Seek' we had earlier been engaged in.  So, laughing, he ran into his bedroom and hid himself from yours truly. 

Right under his covers.

As I walked in and saw the squirming pile of covers, I called out "Where's Lukas? I can't believe he just disappeared! "  At that point there was an audible giggle from underneath the pile.  "What was that?"  I said in a raised voice.  "Is something under here?". 

Then, I slowly raised the comforter from his bed to reveal a smiling little boy.  But, before I could say anything like "Found you!" his arm extended towards me and gave a slight wave, before speaking to me in a serious tone through his grin.

He said "This is not the Droid you are looking for."

After letting out a quick laugh, I composed myself for my response.  "No, this is not the Droid I am looking for" I said with a blank stare, before dropping the covers back over him, turning, and walking out of the room.

I thought that was quite an ingeneous trick, since we hadn't read his Star Wars book in quite some time.  And I was still ginning about it when I sat down to write this post.

Spontaneous, funny moments like this one with Lukas happen often around here, and are just another reason I LOVE being a dad.

Next, We'll Show Him a Unicorn

We had just been greeted by an impressive rain, which had passed over nearly as fast as it had arrived, leaving the sun shining brilliantly to our west. 

Looking up and seeing the heavy mist trickle down in front of the sunshine, and smiling almost as brightly, Mrs. LIAYF announced "Quick Lukas, let's go out front.  I think I have something to show you."

And sure enough, there it was.  His first rainbow. A bit hard to tell here, but it was actually a double.

 

We had recently asked him if he had ever actually seen one, which he hadn't. So we were on active rainbow watch.

As you might have guessed, there were no pots of gold to be found anywhere. 

Sad, because they really could have come in handy.

A Day of Note

By all accounts today was not a day of note.  Nothing special or memorable happened. No work projects completed. No milestones were reached. No pictures taken. No purchases were made.

In fact, the only obvious accomplishment worth mentioning which took place this day was that the soggy Seattle skies cleared just long enough for me to leave work early, come home, and finish painting my deck and porch. Like I said, it was a Thursday.  Of a full work week. The sun barely made and appearance.  This was definitely not a memorable day.

Or was it?

After my painting job was finished, I had enough time to get a few other chores done around the house.  Some that had been nagging me for a while.  Then Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas arrived home and while Lukas laughed uncontrollably while watching an episode of Shawn the Sheep, and Mrs. LIAYF watched an episode of The Closer, I made a fresh salmon dinner with kale and fig bread, while I sipped on a craft beer and listened to the baseball playoffs on the radio.  Pausing to take in the scene at that moment, it dawned on me that despite my sometimes hectic schedule, I was extremely happy.

Then, after the media distractions were over, my family and I sat down to dinner together in a quiet dinning room to enjoy our meal and talk about our respective days.  Lukas, of course, was his animated self using impressive hand gestures to describe the antics of the claymation show he had just watched. After dinner, a game of pirates and dragons between father and son then turned into a game of chase and lasers which lasted until it was time to wind ourselves down for the evening bedtime routine.

After the game of chase I was worn and out of breath, but as I lay on our guest bed next to Lukas - both of us laughing and silly - I again realized how happy these little moments were making me.

No, today Thursday October 6th, 2011 was not a day of note.  It was just another day in my life as a parent.  A busy day where I did many of the same chores I do nearly every other day: Laundry, dinner, dishes, and work around the house.

But, of course, that's really not all it was.  It was also one of those many collective days that make up Lukas' childhood that I will one day look back upon with fond memories. 

I won't remember a specific scene.  I won't have a picture with which to recall the day.  I will just remember how nice it was. 

And that it made me happy.

Little Pink Porches

Happy Monday readers.  I have to admit, I am more than a bit sore today. 

"Why?" you may ask.  "Have you been working out more?  Maybe riding your bike to work again?".  Well, no on both accounts, but thanks for asking (you're so good about that).  Actually, I am sore today because I spent the weekend busily engaged in an activity I had absolutely no business doing the first weekend in October.

That's right, I was painting.

The temperature here in Seattle barely cracked 60F over the weekend, with the constant threat of rain.  But hey, my deck and porch REALLY need to be painted before the Fall rains come in earnest leaving everything around the Pacific Northwest waterlogged until next July.  So I carefully followed the local weather forecast and decided I had a Sunday window with which I could squeeze in most of the job.

Now the reason I needed to squeeze the job in because, of course, when August and September came and the weather was actually prime around here for outdoor painting, I was much too busy enjoying the sunshine and moderate temperatures with Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas to bother myself with such annoyances.

But, unfortunately, when Fall comes here in Seattle, it can come on fast.  And before you know it, it's October, temperatures are barely reaching 60 degrees, and raindrops dominate the 7 Day Forecast.

So, I prepped the areas all day Saturday, doing quite a bit of scrapping, sanding, and cleaning.  Then, on Sunday the weather was cloudy but dry with a few sun breaks.  The rain was due later that night, but I figured I had enough time to get at least a primer coat on everything and maybe a coat of paint on the porch. 

Our house is dark orange in color, so when I had the primer tinted it turned out to be a lovely shade of pink.  I tried to tell myself it was 'Salmon', but honestly it was pink.  I spent all the late morning and early afternoon putting that coat down.  Then after a late lunch I made the call that I had enough time to get a coat of orange on the porch.  Maybe.

I really should have stopped there, but my painting inertia had kicked in.  It was about 4PM when I was finishing the last of the coat of paint.  And when I felt the first drip of rain drop onto the top of my nose.

I frantically finished the last of the surfaces and held out hope that the skies would clear for a couple more hours at least while the paint mostly dried.   And, thankfully that one drip was a fluke.  A temporary fluke, but a fluke nonetheless.   I cleaned up and Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I walked up to a local food fair that was going on.  About an hour later the skies opened up, and an onslaught of rain poured forth.  I had thrown caution to the wind, and the wind had thrown it right back at me (along with a river of water.)

After the rain let up a bit and we had finished eating we walked back to our house.  All the way I was grimacing at the thought of what I might find there. I knew the paint wasn't dry, but how bad was it going to be?

It turned out to be about as bad as I imagined it would be.  There were a LOT of pink streaks from the primer coat showing through.  In fact, I'm pretty sure there hasn't been streaking that ugly since they filmed 'Old School'.  But on the bright side, the higher up the steps I looked (where I began) the better it was.  Plus, the rain actually washed away all the orange puddles and it looks like I might get another dryish day this coming weekend so I can finish up.

Until then though, my pink streaked porch is on display for all the neighbors to see. 

Yes, I should have done this job a month ago while I was enjoying my summer with my family instead.  But life is short, and so is childhood, so I guess I'm okay with painting in the rain every so often.

**So many of you are calling for a picture that I decided to relent.  It was darkish when I left home this morning, and I caught this blurry image with my cheap phone camera.  Your welcome.

Linkin Blogs

Tim, over at Life of Riles recently gave me cool Meme/Award.  The 7 x 7 link award tasks you with looking back at your archeived posts for ones that had an impact in certain ways.

It's been a while since I have participted in a meme, but I really like Tim's blog so I decided to oblige. 

So, without too much forethought, here they are.

Most Beautiful: Sure, it was the product of yet another meme, but this post about Where I am From is perhaps my most poetic piece.

Most Helpful: Hmmmmm.....helpful? That's not really what my posts here at LIAYF are about.  Probably as close as I've come is this post about My Top Ten Father Son Movie Moments.  Don't give me that look.  I'm sure it was helpful to somebody.  Somewhere.  Maybe. 

Most Popular: Without question it was my post from earlier this month, about our plans to adopt our 2nd child.  I had my highest number of pageviews in 4 years on that post.  Very encouraging.

Most Controversial: Let's face it, I'm not a controversial writer.  That is, unless you consider self deprecating humor as 'controversial'.  Maybe the closest I came was just recently when I posted about not having taken Lukas to McDonald's. Ever!

Most Surprisingly Successful:  The popularity of this post, about others realizing what you have as a parent, was very popular.  Probably more so than I expected.

Most Underrated: Personally, I liked this post about a thrilling game of Preschool Hot Potato quite a bit.  And although it did get some comments, I wish more people would have read it.

Most Prideworthy: This post about reaching a noteworthy milestone as a parent ranks up there with any I've written in terms of ones I'm proud of.

Now I guess the rules are to pass the award on to 7 more outstanding bloggers. They are listed below. 

If you haven't heard of some of them, click through and give them a read.  You'll be glad you did.  Heck, maybe even one or two of them will play along with thier own post.

Fillets to Fishsticks

DC Urban Dad

Mom Next Door

Eduacated Abroad

Super Daddy

Portland Dad

Zen Mom

Random Tuesday: Sloppy Edition

Chis Singer ( @Book_Dads ) visited Seattle last week with his lovely wife and daughter.  We had them over for dinner and Lukas and I instantly hit it off with Chris.  Literally!  In fact, I bet he is still having nightmares about Lukas' stinging blue uppercut.  "Rockem Sockem!  Rockem Sockem!" Lukas chanted as they pummeled each others robots.  Despite that, Chris then sat him down and read him a Star Wars book.  Nice Guy.

*****

Lukas: Daddy let's play Light Savers.
Me: You mean Lightsabers buddy.
Lukas: No, I said Light Savers!
Me: It's a Lightsaber. A sword is called a saber. So, it's a sword made out of light. See?
Lukas: Yeah, but I want to play Light Savers daddy.
Me: Okay then, let's see who can turn off the lights first!

*****

The other day Mrs. LIAYF and I were engaged in some rather pointed discourse (to our credit, we didn't once yell) about.....you guessed it, Sloppy Joe's. What, you mean you didn't guess Sloppy Joe's? Now we haven't had Sloppy Joe's in years, but my lovely bride put it right there on our dinner planning menu for the next week. Not being able to read properly, I gathered up a shopping list, including what I assumed we needed to prepare the dinners on the menu, and was off to the grocery.

My mistake? I came home with a can of Hunts Manwich Sauce. Ha ha. You see, apparently she was planning to make the meal from scratch. With all healthy ingredients.  It was from a recipe no less. Sure, this is what she does with nearly all ours meals, but the can just called out "Easy" to me. We were both tired so, as you can imagine, my manwich was in trouble.

It was during our discussion that Lukas came between us with his Buzz Lightyear and began to use his laser on yours truly. "I'll save you Mommy" he said as he pointed the wrist with the flashing light which was making the laser sound at me. I guess there's no doubt whose side Buzz will always take in such an exchange. Apparently, I'm Zurg. We all had a good laugh at that.

*****

If you ever want to find me, just take a gander under your nearest rock. I do reside there after all. It's true, with no television and a 4 year old, I am usually way behind the times on what is going on out there in the world beyond my narrow silo. That's why I was shocked when I heard about Spotify the other day. A music site where you can sign up for free and listen to a catalog of nearly 15 million songs, including full albums from nearly most any band you can think of (except the Beatles)? It didn't take me long to sign up. Now I am listening to many of those albums that I had always wanted to listen to before I decided to buy or not. Yeah, I'm already a big fan.

*****

You might have noticed in a recent Wordless Wednesday post that Lukas in now wearing glasses.  He has been diagnosed with Amblyopia.  Basically, his one eye is weak and shutting down and the brain has to relearn to use that eye.  The doctor prescribed the glasses, along with patching his good eye for 2-6 hours a day.  Unfortunately, we may have to follow this routine for up to 5 years.  But on the bright side, since we caught this early enough his vision has a chance to correct back to 20/20.

While patching the eye doctor also indicated that he wanted Lukas concentrating on something small, and close up.  He recommended at least a half an hour day of video game.  Yes, video games.  Doctors orders.  Lukas hasn't always been too excited about this though.  Just the other day he wanted to go outside and play.  "Not until you play your video game!" I had to say.  How humorous is that?

*****

And finally, I am hosting my biggest giveaway yet over at Luke, I am Your Father Reviews. I am giving away a Clarisonic Mia!  Valued at well over a Franklin people.  There are several ways to enter, including grabbing our adoption badge.  So, if you haven't stopped over there yet, now is definitely the time folks.

Blue Badge of Anticipation

So, I really put the LIAYF family out there in my last post. First, I want to thank all who read and commented. It's nice to know that you are thinking good thoughts for us and keeping us in mind as you carry on. Heck, there might even be a chance that one of you will hear about something along those line that you would normally have not thought twice about.  Maybe not today or tomorrow, but maybe one day.

Moving forward - and at some point we must move forward - the question became "How long should I leave that post up, before posting again?"    I mean, I want to give people ample opportunity to read the post, but at some point I do need to post again.  Then I had an idea.

This is the point where I tell you that old (emphasis on the old) bloggers can learn old tricks.

I decided that the best way to keep our adoption post out there, while moving forward with other content, would be to create a badge, that would live in my right hand column and also appear at the bottom of any new posts.  Here is the finished product:

Then I thought "Why stop there?"  I could even create a badge that other blogger, if they were so inclined, could post on their sites as well.

For those of you who, like me, have never created a badge before, here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to make your own.  Yes, with a quick google search you can find a more detailed tutorial, but I know you, and you don't have the time for that.

1. Create the image Pick a picture or background you want to use for the badge.  For mine, I just took this picture....

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loaded it to Picnik, cropped the upper right hand corner, sized to 175X175, added the text, then saved it to my computer.

2.  Load the Image to a Server - There are several ways to do this, but I just loaded it to imgur, which I was able to create an account on by signing in with Twitter.  After loading the image had it's own URL, which I then copied.

3.  Get the HTML code - I found the code I needed with  a search, and used my URL's to replace the text that indicated [Destination URL] and [Image URL] aready listed.

<a href="[Destination URL]"><img src="[Image URL]"/></a>

Then, if you want to create a text box to display so that other bloggers, if they are so inclined, can grab and display your badge, use the same steps for replacing URL's to create the following  text box code:

<textarea cols=”15? rows=”8? wrap=”virtual”><a href="[Destination URL here]"><img src="[Image URL here]"/></a></textarea>

4.  Add Code to Your Site - Now take the code you just created and add it to your site.  Here is my finished product.
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<a href="http://liayf.blogspot.com/2011/09/were-adopting-you-can-help.html"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hmNLN.jpg"/></a><br />

There you have it.  Not so hard, right?

Like I said, I will be using the first badge I created to anchor future posts.  And, of course, Mrs. LIAYF and I would greatly appreciate it if you grabbed our badge for display on your site as well.  If you do, please let me know. 

Thanks.

We're Adopting - You Can Help

Save for a mention in a previous post I haven't talked about it much here at 'Luke, I am Your Father', but we are in the process of adding to the size of our family. We are doing it through adoption.

Given Mrs. LIAYF's history with adoption (her mother and uncle are both adopted) we had always planned on having one biological child and then adopting another. However, this outcome was not easy to achieve. Before Lukas was born, we spent four years, multiple thousands of dollars, and countless hours of 'practice' (yes, we could be qualified as Outliers in that field) trying to nudge along the process of conception. But, sadly, this was to no avail. We were eventually told by our doctor that we would most likely never have a biological child of our own.

As it is with many would-be parents, this was a frustrating, heartbreaking, and at times demoralizing experience for both of us. We couldn't fully comprehend why we were having these difficulties, especially when we knew we had so much love and happiness to give. Finally there came a time, after riding the emotional rollercoaster for so long, that we had our closure moment. Now, we would simply adjust to adoption as our primary option to start our family. And, we were very happy with our choice.

Then, miraculously, Lukas picked us as his parents. We literally found out Mrs. LIAYF was pregnant the same morning that we were sending our profile to an expecting mother who we had found was looking for adoptive parents. We were shocked. We held each other for what seemed like hours and cried tears of joy. Despite the stories you may have heard, statistically this almost never happens.

We quickly contacted our adoption attorney and had him refer this birth mother to another family looking for a child to love. Our plans for adoption would be put on hold.

Fast forward nearly five years. The parenting experience has been every bit the amazing journey Mrs. LIAYF and I had envisioned. We count our blessings each and every day to have Lukas in our lives. We laugh and love more than we could have ever imagined, even five years earlier.

If you read this blog, you will know that I write a lot of self deprecating humor. I often poke fun at myself, my age, and many other things. But all joking and humility aside, Mrs. LIAYF and I are pretty fantastic parents. And Lukas is a pretty amazing kid. We realize that, but we also realize that we are far from done. We have plenty of room in our home, and in our lives, to share with another child. And that child will be extremely well loved.

Since earlier this year, we have been completing all the necessary steps, including background checks and a lengthy home study, to bring that child into our happy home. Like we were pursuing before Lukas came along, we are opting for a process called Domestic Infant Adoption. This means we have an adoption attorney and are staying local, while waiting for a birth mother to pick us as the adoptive parents to her soon to be born beautiful baby.

With this path we are not contracting with an agency, but rather opting to find our child through other avenues. This involves networking. In essence, getting the word out about who we are, and most importantly that we are looking to provide a loving home to another child.

This, readers, is where you may be able to help. You, as the readers of 'Luke, I am Your Father' are perhaps our biggest network when it comes to locating the child who has picked us, and is waiting for us to find him/her. And networking, in the form of getting the word out that you are looking to adopt a child, it has been told to us by the professionals who we've been in contact with, is the key to speeding up the domestic adoption process. In fact, the first young birth mother we were made aware of 5 years ago was the daughter of a friend of a co-worker of Mrs. LIAYF's. That's usually how it works.

So readers if you have heard, or do hear in the future through your personal grapevine about a expectant mother who may be looking at adoption as a means of giving the child she is carrying the chance at a secure and loving home, please think of the LIAYF family and the healthy, happy home full of laughter and learning we could give that child.

In the off chance this does happen, please contact us using the email listed on my profile page. You can click 'View my Complete Profile' on the upper right hand corner of this screen. You can give my e-mail to any prospective birth mother. You can also give her our attorney’s contact information – Albert Lirhus in Seattle, Washington (206) 728-5858. The birth mother can ask to speak to Joan and request the adoption profile for our family – “Jim, Anne and Lukas.”

All that being said, and certainly this is the tricky part, we would prefer that birth parents not be referred here, to LIAYF. At this stage of the process, there would simply be too many yet unanswered variables to consider. That would be a decision left for another time. So, if in the off chance you do know of a prospective birth mother, please hold off on giving out this web address, or blog name.

So, there you have it, the story of our journey to adding a fourth member to our happy family. Thanks for reading, and for keeping our story in mind as you go about your daily lives.

Who knows?  If you were actually able to help, I may even give you creative license in choosing a psudonym for LIAYF's newest edition. 

That is, as long as it's not Jar Jar.

Top 10 Funniest Movies - In My Dreams

"What? We weren't included?"

Tell me readers, is it a sign that you blog too much if you are actually dreaming about gathering information for a post?

Yeah, I thought so.

As you might have guessed, that is precisely what happened to yours truly last night.  I woke at 3:30 AM from a very intense dream I was having.  In that dream I was actively debating with some unidentified person (probably Mrs. LIAYF) what the funniest movies ever made were.  Naturally, many of the details were a bit fuzzy, but I distinctly remember that I had to refine my list because I was going to post about it.

I also remember being adamant that, NO, Sister Act would definitely never be included on the list.  (What can I say? I'm not a big Whoppi fan. Sorry.)

Anyway, I think there were some fairly interesting choices on my dream list but...unfortunately I couldn't remember most of them. 

All that being said, I thought "What the hay" I should just post my actual, not buried in the far reaches of my mind, list.  With any luck, it'll resolve some 'issue' I'm having.

Without further adieu, here are SeattleDad's top 10 funniest movies:

1.  The 40 year Old Virgin

2.  Planes Trains and Automobiles

3.  Dumb and Dumber

4.  Old School

5.  Monty Python's and the Holy Grail

6.  Animal House

7.  National Lampoon's Vacation

8.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

9.  Napoleon Dynamite

10. A Fish Called Wanda Little Miss Sunshine
 
So, tell me readers, do you ever dream about your posts? And what movies would make your 'Dream List'?